


Gift Troubles

by Lyledebeast



Series: Plans [3]
Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas Fluff, Multi, Polyamory, Snow, probably historical anachronism, with a puppy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-11 00:19:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8945107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyledebeast/pseuds/Lyledebeast
Summary: It's Christmas and Marian has gone to get Guy's gift.  Allan's PoV.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I feel pretty sure I've read another fic where Guy is given a similar gift, but while there are lot of things in fanfiction that are overdone, reformed villains receiving snuggly puppies is never going to be one of them, in my opinion.
> 
> I envision Guy's puppy as a medieval version of a scottish deerhound, a long-legged, wiry sighthound breed.

As the snow began to fall harder, Allan started to regret letting Marian go out to get Guy’s Christmas present.  Not that he exactly “let” Marian do anything, but he should have put up a stronger argument against it.  He had suggested that he be the one to retrieve it, though he was a little uncertain of the cottage’s location.  “Nonsense,” Marian had replied to that.  “The Master at Arms has too much to do with everyone coming into Nottingham today.” It was true that Christmas was a busier day than usual, and the dungeon was filling up with petty criminals already.  Allan remembered a time when his Christmases had been much the same.  Now, his holiday troubles were a bit different, but troubles they remained.

Before Marian had come to live at the castle, he had never given Guy presents.  Sure, Guy gave him things all the time—clothes, weapons, a horse—but he never seemed bothered that he didn’t reciprocate.  “You give me everything I need,” he had said the one time Allan had brought it up, and he had left it alone since.  He suspected that it had to do with their class difference, and it was true enough that presents had not really been part of Allan’s life until he started sleeping with Guy.

But then she came, and her ideas about gifts and giving them could not have been more different. Of course, Guy had showered her with gifts long before she had any interest in marrying him, and her discomfort with that had never really gone away.  “He once said that his mother told him that he should give gifts when he had failed in friendship, and he knew he had done that many times,” she had revealed to Allan.  “I don’t want presents; I want his behavior to change.” Eventually, after she and Guy were married, she had told him that.  Now his gifts were less frequent, but more fraught with anxiety for the giver. “But do you think she’ll like it?” was the question he had to answer at least half a dozen times per gift.  Though Marian had said more than once that she preferred to have her presents on the appointed day, Allan usually caved and agreed with Guy that he should give it to her earlier.  Better that she be slightly annoyed than that he be annoyed half to death.  Fortunately, Guy had also gotten better at choosing gifts for her—things she needed rather than things that looked impressive—and any irritation she may have felt turned into genuine pleasure quite quickly. She was wearing the dress Guy had given her this year on her outing, and for once, Allan thought, she must be glad to have received it early. The thick wool fabric would keep her warm.

She was certain that the present she had chosen for Guy this Christmas would be the best one yet.  It was the second that the three of them had spent together, and the first since Marian had learned not to ask Guy what he wanted.  The previous year, shortly after she had moved back into the castle, she had given him a pair of daggers that he never used, and yet when she asked what he wanted for his birthday the following June, he had just said, “a new knife would be nice, I suppose.” Allan had accompanied her to the smith’s shop, and he recalled that she had grumbled the entire time.

“Oh, I like these,” she exclaimed, picking up a petite throwing knife and holding the edge up to the light.  “Do you think if I got him three I could steal one back without him noticing?”

“Probably,” he replied with a smile, “but who do you have to throw knives at now that you’re married to the sheriff?”

She shrugged as she lay the knife back on the table and picked up one next to it.  “You never know who will need it, but also . . . I suppose . . . old habits.  Besides, I’ve always been better with knives than he is.”

Catching Allan’s glance at her side, she waved her hand dismissively.  “That was sheer dumb luck.  And it figures that his one successful stab during a fight would be someone he actually didn’t want to hurt in disguise.” As she went on, her voice softened unexpectedly.  “He was never much of a Master at Arms.  You have a better temperament for it.  I just can’t understand why he still wants weaponry when he doesn't really use what he already has.”

Without thinking or looking up from the dagger he was examining, Allan said, “I guess that’s because the only presents the old sheriff ever gave him were weapons, and now that’s all he thinks he deserves.”

He heard the loud plink of the knife Marian held falling onto the table, and when he looked up her eyes were open wide with horror.

“The only thing . . . ever?”

Allan nodded, realization beginning to dawn on him. Marian looked at him, her eyes narrowing in anger that he knew had nothing to do with him, and left the shop without another word.

The next time he had seen her was that night after dinner.  She was late in coming up to the sheriff’s chambers where the three of them usually slept, and when she arrived it was with an armful of wildflowers and a vase.  For a moment, Guy had simply looked at them, seeming to not realize that they were for him even after Marian placed them in his arms and bade him a happy birthday.  He had blushed, silent and confused, but unable to stop looking at the flowers even when Marian had taken them back and put them in the vase by the window.  Guy had insisted they remain there long after they had wilted and turned brown, not allowing Marian to throw them out until well into the fall.

“Where could she be?” Guy cried, startling Allan out of his reverie.  “She said it wouldn’t take long, and it’s been hours!”

“Don’t worry,” he replied, as much to himself as to Guy.  “She only went to see Much and Meg; she knows the way.  The horse is safe.  Really, Giz.  There’s no need to panic. If she didn’t think it would be alright, she wouldn’t’ have gone.”

He couldn’t be surprised when his words failed to dissuade Guy.  “Well, she didn’t know the snow would get so bad, so it doesn’t matter what she thought when she left. I’m going organize a search party; it will start to get dark soon, and I don’t want to wait until then.”

Allan sighed in resignation.  If Marian was fine, she would be angry with him for letting Guy get so worked up, but if she wasn’t . . . the risk was not worth taking.

“Alright, let’s just look in the bedroom once more, and if she’s not there then we’ll go a look for her.”

Guy glowered down at him.  “Don’t you think that if she had returned, we would know about it? She would know how worried we are.”

Allan had to fight back an impulse to roll his eyes.  People had been worrying about Marian all her life; she had never considered that enough for it to stop her doing as she pleased.

“A lot of people have been in and out of the gates today, Guy.  And we have been busy; it’s possible she could have crept in without our knowing.”

Guy remained where he was, his eyes narrowing further

“Come on, Giz,” Allan pleaded further.  “Maybe she hasn’t had time to come and find us yet, if she just came back.  Send some men to search the town if you must, but come with me.  Think of how we’ll feel if we go to look for her, and can’t find her, and it turns out that she’s been here the whole time!”

For some reason, that seemed to work.  Guy turned and walked towards the castle so quickly that Allan had to break into a run to keep up with his long strides.  He caught up with him just in time to hear him call out Marian’s name a moment after he opened the bedroom door.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Marian rise from the chair and stretch before Guy wrapped his arms around her, but his attention was drawn to the commotion on the bed.  The puppy was wagging its tail violently as it chewed at the edges of Marian’s cloak, in which she had apparently tried to wrap it.”

“Where were you?” he heard Guy murmur into Marian’s hair.  She broke away from him gently, rising onto the tips of her toes to kiss him.

“I’m sorry, darling.  It had just started snowing harder when I arrived at Much and Meg’s, and she wouldn’t me leave! She said it was snowing too hard, and it wasn’t safe.”

“Well, she was right,” Guy interjected, trying and failing to sound stern.

“Even though Much was on my side, neither one of us could convince her let me go until the snow abated a little bit, and then I had to rush off as fast as I could with your present before she changed her mind.”

As she concluded, she took Guy by the shoulder and turned him to face the bed.  He gasped loudly, his blue eyes going wide.

“Oh, Marian! It’s . . . is it?”

“Yes, Guy,” she laughed, “she’s for you.  Sit down. She’s been trying to play with me every moment that she’s been awake.”

Guy reached towards the puppy, which immediately began to lick his hand vigorously. She was a small, soft, grey creature with a white patch on her chest, and enormous feet that hinted at her future size.  The mother, who was the one possession Meg’s father had allowed her to take when she chose to marry a peasant, was a tall hound, and Meg said that the father was even larger.  Fully grown, she would be able to keep up with Guy even when he was on his horse.

He watched Guy and the puppy until Marian came to stand next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.  When he turned, she gave him a tired smile.

“You were right,” she admitted.  “I should have taken the cart.  When I left and she was asleep inside my cloak, everything was fine, but of course she woke up, and then it was a struggle every step of the way.”

Allan grinned; it was seldom that Marian admitted anyone else was right.  “I thought you said Meg kept you behind.”

“She did, but that was a while ago.  Just after I left, the snow started picking up again, and then all she wanted to do was snuggle against me in the saddle.  But when I tried to hold her closer, she wouldn’t stop liking my face . . . like that!”

She pointed at Guy, and Allan saw that the puppy had progressed to standing on Guy’s lap and washing his stubbled cheeks with her pink tongue, her new master making no attempt to stop her.

“But, of course, if I had put her down, she wouldn’t be able to keep up with the horse.  So, I just kept shifting her from one arm to other, stopping every few minutes.  My biggest fear most of the way was that the horse would throw us both.  You know how spirited he is.”

Allan wrapped an arm around her waist, squeezing her.  “Well, you’re here now, both of you safe.” In a lower voice, he added, “you did well, look how happy his is.”

Guy was paying no attention to them.  He was smiling broadly, his cheeks damp with what Allan suspected was more than just the licking they had received.

“Do you like her, Guy?” he couldn’t resist asking.  Their lover had never mentioned wanting a puppy, but Allan had noticed that he spent a surprising amount of time at the kennels, and he had seen him looking wistfully at every puppy they had met in his years of working with him. When he suggested it to Marian, her eyes had lit up.  She knew exactly where to find one.

“Well, I suppose it will be a lot of work, she’s . . . just a ball of fluff now, but in time she’ll . . . yes, Allan.  Of course I like her.  Marian . . . I . . . thank you.”

Marian sat down next to him, pulling him into a hug.  When the puppy tried to climb onto her lap, though, she held her back with her hand, drawing a smile from Allan. He picked the dog up, scratching behind her ears until she was still.

“I thought you wanted one, Giz, for all your saying nothing about it. I suppose the only think stopping you was . . .”

He trailed off, knowing that even though the old sheriff had been dead for over a year, the mention of him could kill the happy mood quite quickly.  Already, the smile had dropped from Guy’s lips.

“I suppose that’s true, Pet.  I did have a dog for a little while once, before you came here, but . . . the sheriff . . .”

Allan asked no more questions; he doubted either he or Marian really wanted to hear the end of that story.

“Look,I . . . I got you a cage to put her in until she’s able to go out with you, and bowls for food and water,” he announced as he lifted the fur that was covering his gifts.  He had expected that his present would underwhelm next to what Marian had brought, why wouldn’t they? But Guy stood and held his arms out to him all the same. Allan placed the puppy back on the bed and let Guy pull him against his chest.

“Thank you, Pet.  And thank you for making me come up here first.  We could both be frozen by now if you hadn’t”

“Shhh,” Marian whispered from the bed. Allan stepped away from Guy and saw that the puppy had stretched out on her side, sound asleep.

“Thank God,” Marian sighed with relief.  “I thought she would never go back to sleep.  Come on, let’s go down for dinner before she wakes up again.”

Guy reached down to give one more stroke to the small grey head, then gave Marian his hand.

“You’re right, love.  We’ll go now.”


End file.
